Luria’s neuropsychology today
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54359/ps.v18i100.1960Abstract
The author of the article, a student of A.R. Luria, presents her perspective on the formation, development, and contemporary state of Luria’s neuropsychology. The first part of the paper addresses the establishment of the theoretical core – the principles of sociogenesis and the systemic structure of higher mental functions – along with the first practical solutions derived from them, developed jointly by L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria between 1927 and 1934. The second part focuses on the pre-war, wartime, and immediate post-war periods (1936–1948), during which Luria developed his “theory of functional systems of the cerebral cortex” and applied it to the study of aphasia. These theoretical constructs were tested and refined through intensive rehabilitation work during the war. By 1948, Traumatic Aphasia and Restoration of the Brain after War Trauma had been completed and published, earning Luria international recognition.
The development of the “theory of functional systems of the cerebral cortex,” initiated in the 1940s, continued throughout Luria’s life. He regarded the brain as a single dynamic system composed of highly differentiated parts. Among the many issues he explored in relation to brain functioning, the third part of the article addresses one specific, yet crucial, question – the reliability of psychological research. This issue was first raised in Higher Cortical Functions (1962) and was later expanded in a 1970 paper co-authored with mathematician E.Yu. Artemyeva. Luria argued that “syndrome analysis can rightfully be considered a type of factor analysis” [Luria, 1969, p. 76]. To illustrate contemporary Russian psychologists’ attitudes toward quantitative assessment, the author examines the development of qualitative–quantitative methods for symptom assessment in child neuropsychology, which have seen active progress over the past quarter-century. The fourth part briefly reviews methods for correcting the development of higher mental functions in children, grounded in the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria. Finally, the concluding section reflects on Luria’s legacy – what has been absorbed, and in what ways, by contemporary Russian and international neuropsychology.
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